


Eight Letters

by melonbutterfly



Series: Stranger Things Have Happened [11]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, M/M, Presumed Dead, References to Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, References to Past Drug Use, Shock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 11:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/pseuds/melonbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hey," Natasha says, voice unusually soft. Suddenly she's sitting next to him – between him and Sif – and putting an arm around his shoulders. "He's alright." She hesitates. "The higher-ups sent a nuclear bomb into Manhattan. Tony took it and flew it up into the wormhole instead. He fell through just before I had to close it because of the shock wave, but his suit was completely out of juice. I'm sure he did his best to contact you as soon as he could."</p><p>Bloody hell. Closing his eyes Loki takes a deep breath, and then another. "What an asshole."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eight Letters

Loki is in Tony's lab when he gets the call. He's been in there since the people landed on the roof shortly before the invasion; sounding slightly panicked, JARVIS had all but herded him downstairs, repeatedly pointing out that the lab is the safest place in the tower. Which is the truth. It even has a chamber that should come out intact if the tower collapses, equipped with astronaut food and water for several days, all courtesy of Tony's paranoia. There's even lube because Tony might never have been an official member, but he's still the embodiment of the "always prepared" motto, these days.

After inspecting the chamber Loki sits in one of Tony's office chairs, positioned in perfect view of the biggest screens in the lab while still close to the safe room, and has JARVIS put up any video feeds on what's going on outside available, splitting one screen into a collage of news channels plus youtube. "He doesn't know I'm here, does he?" he asks, watching the blurry red and gold armored figure flit across several screens. Originally he meant to be in Malibu right now and the last time he and Tony spoke – before this whole mess started – that had still been the plan. Besides, if Tony knew Loki is still here he would have called by this point, if only to tell him to stay the fuck inside.

Not for the first time, Loki thinks about what life would be like if he asked for Tony to make him a suit as well. He's been idly thinking about it ever since Stane and then started seriously considering the possibility after the whole fiasco with Vanko. He knows Tony would do it but until now Loki has refrained from saying anything about it because this belongs to Tony; being Iron Man, owning and flying the most advanced piece of technology on the planet… it's as much a source of pride as a symbol of his very personal change for Tony. But Loki doesn't think he can deal much longer with sitting helplessly by the sidelines, unable to do anything but watch while Tony is in very real danger.

"Mr. Stark is unaware as to your presence, yes," JARVIS confirms. "Would you like for me to tell him?"

"No. I really don't think he can afford the distraction right now." Loki raises an eyebrow and enlarges the screen of one of the news channels with a flick of his hand, simultaneously increasing the volume. He watches for a while as the reporter sums up what's going on; she says that according to witness accounts _Captain America_ has returned and is fighting for New York. Loki, who never really got the whole American hero worship thing and then further got influenced by Tony's less than fond memories of his own personal history in relation to Captain America, can't do anything but watch with faint incredulity as the reporter comments on blurry mobile phone clips with clear excitement brimming on awe. Another channel simultaneously is calling the guy an "imposter" and both offer face comparisons of blurry stills from blurry cell phone videos with old 1940's photos. All Loki has to say on the matter is that he's seen better comparisons on TotallyLooksLike but it's interesting seeing the public's reaction – and more importantly, it's distracting Loki from trying to catch fleeting images of Tony that only make him more worried.

A little later, as Loki is scrolling through news headlines on google about what's happening right now, JARVIS manages to make him forget everything by saying, "Mr. Stark calling you, sir."

Sitting up straight, Loki wipes the screens clear with one gesture. "Yeah."

Tony's face appears on the big screen, inside the helmet and so much larger than life. He looks tense, blank, something in his expression that chills Loki to the bone. "Tony?"

"Hey, babe," Tony says. His eyes flick to where the tiny video feedback of Loki is positioned on his screen before they focus up again, forwards. "Listen, I don't have much time, I just wanted to say… I'm really, really sorry, okay? I recorded some stuff for you, I mean, I had more than one opportunity to think about what I might wanna say in a moment like this, so. JARVIS will show you when you're ready."

There is a blank space around the thing he isn't speaking out loud; the dawning realization of what that is grows like ice in Loki's chest. "No," Loki says soundlessly. This is not happening.

Tony grimaces, grief and guilt just briefly distorting his features before his face turns blank again, concentrated. Focused. "I love you, Loki."

In a movie, this would be the moment where he flickers out dramatically while Loki bursts into tears and paws at the screen, but this is no movie. Loki just stares at his husband's face, concentrated, determined, and thinks that this can't possibly be the last time he sees him alive. It can't. He doesn't even know what to say; it's just not true. After all this time, after all they went through… it can't be.

Eyes once more flicking to the tiny image of Loki at the corner of his vision Tony grimaces again, and this time he doesn't recover himself so quickly. "Shit, babe. Are you crying? You know I can't deal with it if you cry." His attention is captured by something in front of him and he stops looking at Loki. "I'm in space." This is when he starts to break up, image freezing and jerking, voice distorting. "I… -ways want… -e but… never-"

The connection breaks up. Loki stares at the black screen, the white, sober letters blinking NO SIGNAL to him. "JARVIS?" His voice is tiny, shaky, pleading, and when he hears it he doesn't recognize anything about it.

"I'm sorry, sir. I lost contact with the Iron Man unit." That's all he says, no explanation, nothing. But it's not like he needs to elaborate anyway.

Loki takes a deep breath. He spent so long expecting Tony to die – first when he was in Afghanistan, several times during the fight with Stane and what came before, then when he found out that the arc reactor was poisoning him, Vanco and every other time Tony got involved in a fight – one might think he'd be better prepared now that it actually happened but he isn't, not at all. If anything, it's the opposite. To lose Tony so unexpectedly after all the times he had gotten so close but always came out relatively unscathed… or maybe that makes no difference at all, maybe Loki would always have felt this way. Like someone pulled the floor out from under him, hollowed his chest out with an ice cream scoop, took all the air from the room.

He's not even hyperventilating like he would have thought he would, he's just… empty. His heartbeat sounds loud and hollow in his ears, echoes strangely, air whooshing as he breathes in. The lab is completely silent, will forever remain so, now. With glassy eyes Loki stares at the screen, blank except for those two words, NO SIGNAL. Eight letters. No fucking signal. Never again.

When Loki closes his eyes those letters seem to be burned into his retina, NO SIGNAL carved into the insides of his eyelids, so factual, cold, neutral and yet incredibly cruel. NO SIGNAL.

Loki opens his eyes again, blinks against the dark spots in his vision and casts his gaze around the lab. It's messy, incredibly so, an order to the chaos only in Tony's mind, no hope to decipher it now. What is Loki supposed to do with all this?

What is he supposed to _do_?

"Sir," JARVIS says when Loki gets up, walks out of the lab. Then again, louder, when Loki steps out to the stairs and walks up instead of down; his voice echoes in the deadly silent stairway. "You should not enter the penthouse!" He sounds definitely alarmed. Considering the noise Loki heard up there earlier and the scenes he watched on the security feed he's probably right, but what Loki really needs more than anything right now is a drink. The green guy is gone and the evil alien invasion leader woman had her spine shattered; Loki doubts she'll be agile enough to kill him anytime soon. But even if she is... what would it matter?

She's still lying in the crater her body's impact had left in the marble floor; it had been brand new, he and Tony had argued endlessly about it. Loki had wanted something midnight blue, shiny to reflect the sky on clear days, but Tony had insisted on the dark, dusky-looking marble. He hadn't had many arguments in his favor; the strongest ones had been bribery in the form of "I'll let you do the floor below" and "my mouth is good at persuading your dick". Now the floor needs to be redone. Loki could make it the way he wanted it this time.

The mere thought almost has him throw up. Instead, he makes a beeline for the bar and pours himself a bourbon. Despite the fact that it's been over six years since he last had a drink, the gesture is as familiar to him as second nature.

Lifting the tumbler, he lets the light fall through the golden liquid, much lighter than Tony's eyes.

"Do you… intend to… poison me?" the woman on the floor rasps. Loki almost forgot about her.

"Not really." Putting the glass down, Loki looks at her. "You want one, though? You look like you could use it." His voice sounds so normal now, stable, a lot more than he usually sounds but somehow that's even more off-putting than the way it sounded earlier.

She starts to laugh; it sounds more painful than anything and then she starts to cough. It's pitiful more than anything else, really. Wordlessly, Loki pours a second tumbler and puts the glass next to her crater before taking a seat on the stairs, out of her reach. Probably. He lifts his tumbler and takes a breath, closing his eyes as memories assault him. And not memories of the last time he drank either, as he would have thought, but of the last time he smelled alcohol on Tony's breath. The very last time, just a few days ago, sweet champagne from celebrating the activation of the arc reactor, or any time before that when Tony had a glass – generally actually following the two finger rule and not more than one glass at a time as a concession to Loki – kissing him and tasting of it. Sometimes, early on, Loki hadn't known what he craved more; Tony's kisses or the faint taste of alcohol in his mouth. Maybe that's why he'd reacted so forcefully to Tony's drinking at the beginning. In hindsight he thinks he maybe should've gone easier on Tony. But as with everything, Tony had forgiven him – he always forgives Loki, always.

Well, not anymore, of course.

Pressing the glass to his forehead Loki takes a deep breath and concentrates on the sensation; it's hard, not particularly cold because he didn't add any ice, and it's shaky because his hands are trembling. A choked noise escapes his throat and he holds his breath. It only lasts a moment, then he's back to himself, or at least a strangely calm and mostly just empty version of whatever that is.

The woman laughs again, hoarse and not very amused. "Not the only one who needs it, am I?" Her voice is stronger than before and Loki makes a mental note, but he can't bring himself to care more than that. It's not like she can use him as leverage to blackmail Tony into doing what she wants now. If she kills him, she kills him.

He laughs, not any more amused than she is. "No. Really not."

He didn't even say it back. The last word Tony ever heard from him was "No". He thinks he hates himself a little for that. Tony knew, he tells himself, he knew, but that doesn't make it any better, not truly. He should have said it. Tony should have had something comforting to remember in his last moments.

The thought nearly breaks him; he's close to coming apart at the seams and he knows it. When he does everything contained inside of him will leak out, leaving behind an empty husk, but what else is he without Tony?

The alien woman distracts him, keeps the moment at bay for a little longer as she sneers. "What troubles you so? Does your love gaze upon another?"

Loki looks at her, and there are no outward signs or anything – the small cuts and bruises on her body still look as before – but she looks less shattered, literally. Funny a dichotomy; Loki feels more so by the second. "Not for a long time." He lowers the glass, peers at it and takes a tiny sip, just enough for the flavor to flood his tongue, not stronger than when Tony kisses him. His throat aches when he swallows; his eyes are burning but they remain dry. 

Loki closes them and says, "He just died." He doesn't expect any sympathy from her, he just wants to see if he can say the words, if he's even capable. And it's disgustingly simple to say; just three words, none longer than four letters. How cruel to be able to put something so devastating with such ease.

Opening his eyes again he looks at her. "You met him, actually. He was the first one to offer you a drink in here." Loki had watched it on the security feed, torn between yelling at Tony (and he had, not that Tony could have heard) and feeling something else, something strange, a mix of pride and fondness and other things he hadn't had the opportunity to explore yet. It was typical Tony, he just always needs to prod, push, recklessly curious.

Her expression is sober as she looks at him. "He was a strange warrior, but courageous."

"He was an idiot." Loki sneers. For a genius Tony can be surprisingly stupid. He bets that's the reason Tony is dead now, too. He did something moronic.

She laughs, shifting carefully. "That appears to be a common virtue of warriors." It might have sounded derisive but her tone of voice speaks of fondness instead – the painful kind, the one that hurts. For two years, that's how Loki sounded when speaking of Tony, and even knowing it he hadn't been able to change anything about it.

"Let me guess," Loki says flatly because what the fuck, apparently this is sharing hour and anything, anything to distract him from having to face facts. "You can't have yours the way you want to."

Temper flares across her face for a moment, only to fizzle out and make room for resignation. "That is the truth. I tried, but…" She shrugs.

"He didn't try as well?" Loki doesn't know if it had ever truly been that way, but he'd felt that way sometimes about himself and Tony. There is no point in a relationship if only one is making an effort.

Or if one of them is dead.

She snorts bitterly. "Most certainly not." Very carefully, she starts to sit up.

Nodding, Loki takes another sip of his bourbon, watching her indifferently. "What's your name?"

"I am the Lady Sif." She raises an eyebrow. "Who are you?"

"Loki." Smalltalk exhausted, he turns his head and stares out of the broken window, feeling the cool breeze it lets in and seeing the bright blue sky, interspersed with a few fluffy clouds.

"Sir!" JARVIS suddenly says, so unexpected in the silence that Loki startles and spills liquid over his hand. "A call for you from Mr. Stark."

Loki goes entirely still. "What?"

Suddenly noise fills the penthouse, background noise of excited people, and Tony says, "Loki?"

His first thought is that this is a recording. He had barely believed that Tony was really gone before, but now he can't believe that he's supposed to be not dead after all. This is just too cruel, or maybe the opposite of it, right now Loki honestly can't tell.

"Loki?" Tony says again, sounding more urgent now. "Babe?"

He inhales shakily, then exhales. "Tony?"

"Are you alright?" Tony immediately asks.

Curling his fingers tightly around the glass, Loki tries to collect himself. "Are you real?"

There is a brief pause. "What do you mean?" Tony sounds nervous, almost scared, and it takes Loki a moment to figure out why. When he was high he would sometimes hallucinate – both of them would. Not the kind of thing anyone would like to be reminded of.

"This is not a recording, right?" Loki sets the class down on the floor with a soft clink and pushes his palms into his eyes. "Tell me something that happened very recently. Something you said in your last call."

Tony takes a sharp breath. "I'm so sorry, baby. I'm… I was in space, that's something I said. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that to you."

Loki breathes deeply, trying to calm down. "Come home. I need you to come home."

"Home?" Tony exhales, voice turning distracted for a moment. "I'm so sorry, but I don't think I can come to Malibu anytime soon, the tower is a bit of a mess."

Loki snorts wetly; it feels like a sob. "I know. I'm in it."

"What?" Tony asks sharply. "You're in the tower? Don't – whatever you do, don't go into the penthouse."

Well. "Too late." Loki glances at Sif, still in the crater, who is raising an eyebrow at him, a sarcastic little smile playing around her lips. Saluting him, she takes a sip of her bourbon. He thinks maybe he should be scared because there is after all a way for her to harm him – to harm someone by harming him – but he can't muster up the feeling.

"Loki-"

A new voice speaks up at something of a distance from Tony, but still clearly understandable. "Hey, can I have my mobile back now? You said it'd only take a minute and clearly you got through so I need to call my wife."

"I just-" Tony says.

"I'm fine," Loki interrupts. "She's not going to kill me, are you?"

She shrugs nonchalantly, a gesture that doesn't fit together with the way she's pretending she's still too incapacitated to get out of her crater. "There is no point anymore, is there?"

Tony curses. "If you- hey!"

The new voice speaks, up close now as the woman clearly took the phone from Tony. "He'll get back to you." Then there is only the dial tone.

"Bloody hell," Loki curses, rubbing his face with both hands. He can't fucking deal with this anymore. First Tony is dead, then he isn't – and don't get him wrong, he's never been more grateful for anything in his life than he is for the fact that Tony is alive, but he can't even really feel the relief of it. All he feels right now is incredibly emotionally exhausted. The tears are still burning behind his eyes, the raw tightness of his throat making it hard to breathe and swallow.

"I could kill you just because," Sif says conversationally.

"I wouldn't suggest that," a voice says coolly from the balcony. "I'll throw you out of the window before you can blink, going by how careful you're moving there."

"Natasha," Loki says, saluting her with the glass. He feels endlessly tired, put through the winger by too many emotions. His chest feels tight, throat raw, and though he thinks it might be something of a relief his eyes remain persistently dry. A small mercy, perhaps. If he starts now he might not stop until he passes out

Natasha's eyes flicker to him. "Loki," she replies, already focusing back on Sif. They have a bit of a staring match towards the end of which Natasha raises one eyebrow challengingly. Sif concedes by turning back to her glass, taking another sip.

"Want one?" Loki offers tiredly when Natasha looks back at him, satisfied that her point has been made.

"Thanks," she says, walking towards him. She looks a little banged up but still perfectly capable of taking Sif down, should it become necessary. "Should you be drinking, though?"

Loki doesn't know exactly how much she knows about the two of them and their rocky relationship with mind-altering substances. There is of course everything that's publicly available – which is far more than most people would be comfortable with, though Loki and Tony are used to it and by this point don't care much – and then there is SHIELD's spy work. She doesn't need the latter, though, to know about their problems with alcohol.

Putting the glass back on the floor, Loki shakes his head. "I'm not really drinking." He rubs his eyes, then runs both hands through his hair; he's slowly calming down, he thinks, maybe, or he's just going numb, which is a bit different from the way he felt before – empty, frozen. It's not much of a difference, but it's something. "He calls me, telling me he's dying, the call gets cut off. Half an hour later he calls me again, false alarm, clearly." Taking a shaky breath, he presses his fingertips into his temples. He feels the impulse to dig his fingernails into his skin but manages to curb it; he hasn't self-harmed in a while and isn't going to start up again now, as minor as it might be.

"Hey," Natasha says, voice unusually soft. Suddenly she's sitting next to him – between him and Sif – and putting an arm around his shoulders. "He's alright." She hesitates. "The higher-ups sent a nuclear bomb into Manhattan. Tony took it and flew it up into the wormhole instead. He fell through just before I had to close it because of the shock wave, but his suit was completely out of juice. I'm sure he did his best to contact you as soon as he could."

Bloody hell. Closing his eyes Loki takes a deep breath, and then another. "What an asshole."

Natasha makes an amused noise, squeezes his shoulders.

They stay like this until the elevator dings open, admitting Tony in his banged-up suit sans helmet and gloves, probably actual Captain America (Loki has seen the classified footage, he knows what Steve Rogers looks like, before and after, and if this isn't him it's a very, very good copy), a blond guy Loki vaguely recognizes – he might have been driving a car once, picking Natasha up after one of their coffee dates – another blond guy with a hammer and some half-naked guy awkwardly holding a pair of tattered, way too wide pants around his hips. All of them look a little battered, understandably so, and Tony's expression is tense, eyes a little too wide, mouth pinched. He steps out of the elevator and immediately searches for Loki. Relief floods his face; he sends Natasha a grateful look, briefly glancing at Sif before his eyes find Loki again. "Fuck, darling, you worried me."

Loki raises both eyebrows; he can't even say anything to that because seriously? _Seriously?_ "You are such an asshole," he enunciates, finally getting up. Natasha gets up with him, steadying him with a hand on his elbow when he sways a little on his feet at first because his knees are wobbly.

Tony's expression of relief morphs into alarm; he quickly strides over to Loki, cups his face with both hands. "I'm really sorry, Loki."

Closing his eyes, Loki tries to curl his fingers in Tony's shirt but the suit is in the way, so he just trails his fingertips over scratched metal, trying not to think about how it's been in space, Tony's only protection against certain death. "You are an asshole and I'm really angry with you." He almost says _I hate you_ , the way he used to when Tony scared the crap out of him or made him absolutely furious (which generally came hand in hand, really), but he hasn't said it in over six years and he's not going to fall back into that particular old pattern again, not even now. Especially not now.

"I'm sorry," Tony says again, presses a kiss to Loki's forehead and pulls him into his body. Well, against the suit, and they've had fun that way before but Loki doesn't think he's going to be up for anything like that again anytime soon. "I'm really, really sorry."

Loki thinks he maybe should tell Tony to stop apologizing – it's not like he did it on purpose after all, and rationally Loki knows that he can't be angry with him for what happened but he isn't feeling particularly rational right now, so he doesn't say anything, just lets Tony touch him, fingers tangling in his hair, lips warm against his face. "I'm sorry," Tony says again, quietly.

"Never do that to me again," Loki whispers. It's probably egoistic and not fair but he's not feeling particularly fair right now either.

And Tony, he doesn't say anything about it. He just kisses Loki's temple and cradles the back of his head, let's Loki have a moment to breathe even as voices rise in the room. Eventually Loki manages to collect himself enough to pull back a little, to finally look Tony in the eyes. Something in his own makes Tony wince; he pulls Loki close and kisses him softly on the lips. He frowns, looking a bit scared. "Did you… did you drink?"

Loki glances at the tumbler left on the floor in front of the stairs. "Not really."

With a grimace Tony pulls Loki close again, blinking rapidly. "Fuck. _Loki_."

"Shut up." Squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, Loki shakes his head. "Not now, really not now." He takes a deep breath and steps away from Tony, turning away from him but not without capturing his hand, tangling their fingers. He's not sure he'll be capable of letting go of Tony anytime soon but if he stays this close to Tony for a moment longer he's going to break down right here.

Instead of thinking about it, Loki focuses on the other people in the room. Natasha is standing with the blond guy, both their body language hostile, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. The guy with the hammer is standing by Sif but he's not looking at her; Captain America isn't either, but he's standing closer to her and it looks a little bit like he's protecting her, weirdly.

"Loki," Tony says quietly.

Squeezing Tony's hand, Loki doesn't look at him as he repeats, "Not now. I think we have more important things to do." But before that… turning back to Tony, Loki puts a hand on his husband's cheek and says, "I love you. I love you, Tony."

Tony's expression is serious, worried, but he manages a faint smile at that. "I love you too." His chin tilts up in that way it does when he wordlessly asks for a kiss; Loki immediately leans in and gives it to him. God, this asshole, Loki doesn't ever want to go through this again. He doesn't think he can.

It's time for him to get a suit.


End file.
